Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[OwenBurton]

Galadriel, like she is written and portrayed doesn't carry this show to the heights, i have heard it mentioned in circles that if we had a more charismatic actress or main cast, it could have been a different story - I'm not so sure, the way they wrote Galadriel is also a huge part of why this fails, but then a charismatic actor tends to change how characters are written, because they just bring an excellent version that is just impossible to turn away for a worse version in the original script. or they bring out the best bits.

I did not like Galadriel being picked on by the other children elves in the beginning - that felt very un elf like - and i often wonder if there was more to the scene than to set her up as an angry man longing to prove herself -a s if she's some human twenty something year old, instead of part of a race of very wise and immortal beings that would certainly have very different and far better standards. Whiles you could say elves could be have like that, it doesn't fit the race, but it's there to set up this female character's motivations and it's just all wrong - that's not the Noldor high elves, nor Galadriel as Tolkien would present them.

But then I saw the same in wow, and use to praise tolkien's LotR for how you correctly portray immortal wise beings - these writers seem to simply forget they made them another race that is immortal and extremely wise, - why not exemplify that in your early example - because they have to set Galadriel as angry man-woman - and it just doesn't work..

This reviewer actually liked the show in general, but disliked Galadriel's portrayal thus far. Again, I think that Clark should have portrayed a female human character, perhaps even the Queen of Numenor (the only female human I recall seeing at this point), but not Galadriel.

With Galadriel setup as the show’s primary protagonist and five seasons planned, I admit I’m starting to worry. There’s much to love about Rings Of Power and the third episode had plenty that I enjoyed, but I’m really concerned that Galadriel will sink the ship if major changes aren’t made to her character—and it might simply be too late for that. Which is a shame. Once again, a massively expensive, beautifully shot TV show is slipping because despite all that money, the writing quality just isn’t there.

I’m still enjoying The Rings Of Power, and the massive campaign against it is silly and largely manufactured by people who made up their minds long before it ever came out. Lamentations that it is somehow overly-woke or agenda driven are clearly contrived and enormously nonsensical. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t legitimate problems with the show and Galadriel, unfortunately, is one of them. Hopefully that changes.

P.S. No, I’m not suggesting that Galadriel smile more. I only brought up her moment of smiling because the slow-motion scene was so jarring. Galadriel is always very stony-faced in this show, and then suddenly we have this agonizingly long shot of her grinning ear to pointy ear. I think the problem is more about how they’ve written her to be so headstrong and brash that she lacks other basic social skills like diplomacy, patience and so forth, that could make her feel like a more well-rounded and convincing character.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...driel-problem/

[rhorle]

This show is called Rings of Power. It is supposed to be telling us about how the rings of power got created by Sauron. There isn't any real mystery to that as everyone knows the story if they have seen Lord of the Rings or read the LOTR books. Technically that is a single story line unto itself and could fill multiple seasons without all this other stuff.

Lol. So if the story of how the rings were created is known wouldn't a show having nothing to tell? There are a lot of blanks in Tolkiens work because he only told the story of a specific time and left the rest up to "trivia" about people, places, and things. There would still be questions unanswered even if they tell it like you say because we would be learning things as they happen.

Weird that the same criticism would exist but you accept one over the other.

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Your words make sense, but don't you think it is a very nifty trick for both defenders and showrunners to refute all the critique?

A trick? No. It is just the way things work. Sometimes things get answered quickly and other times they do not. It has no relevance to the plot being utter garbage or the greatest thing ever. Even books do this as different plot threads come and go. I'm not talking about terrible books either as Wheel of Time, for example, has some things that get left unanswered. It just happens.

[InfiniteCharger]

Lol. So if the story of how the rings were created is known wouldn't a show having nothing to tell? There are a lot of blanks in Tolkiens work because he only told the story of a specific time and left the rest up to "trivia" about people, places, and things. There would still be questions unanswered even if they tell it like you say because we would be learning things as they happen.

Weird that the same criticism would exist but you accept one over the other.

Most television shows are able to tell single stories quite fine over multiple seasons. This isn't new or original at all. What is happening here is they are mixing and matching other stuff from Tolkien's second age with their own made up characters and stories, producing a convoluted narrative. And the 'mysteries' are just to make these new narratives seem important when they really aren't.

[Nerovar]

You continually are not writing a response to my arguments. You further deflect in saying it is my problem when this is entirely on your end. At least own up to you no longer wanting to engage. A person doesn't always have to word for word refute an argument in order to point out its failings. You've continually missed the mark on everything to do with the discussion and refuse to now engage on anything unless it accepts your words as undisputed facts. Strange, right?

I've never refused to answer a single thing you've asked. You just haven't liked the answers you were given. Stop putting this on me when you are the only one refusing things here. Your last post didn't even include a question yet you still accuse me of not answering Lol.

I'm not sure if you're trolling or just being wilfully obtuse. By last posts I obviously meant the last posts that were still dedicated to the argument. You've deliberately cropped the questions out of your quotes and refused to address them. Why would you lie about this when anyone can just go back and read it?

[rhorle]

I'm not sure if you're trolling or just being wilfully obtuse. By last posts I obviously meant the last posts that were still dedicated to the argument.

So not your last post. Strange how you insult me when it was you who stated something incorrectly. Again you show that the problem is entirely on you. I kept discussing the topic while you brought it off topic. I haven't lied about anything and I didn't "crop the questions out". You don't have to include the entire post in a quote and it gets quite lengthy to keep it in when a smaller quote works just as well.

You choose to no longer offer rebuttals to my argument and instead focus on me. You continue to blame me instead of yourself for your own posts. Imagine thinking that I control you and are forcing you to no longer discuss the topic.

The amusing part is I did actually answer your questions. You just choose to rage about me the poster rather then engage in the answer you clearly didn't like.

Wait. Do you honestly think that insults have to have a basis in heritage, social standing, or anything else of that nature? That it can't just exist as an insult because someone decided to say it? Did you even look over the list of ethnic slurs I provided? Because most of those became insults because X about Y was used by people in an insulting manner. Not all have some deeper meaning or requirement in order to be a slur/insult. There isn't a power balance required in a slur. Only an insulting one used to separate a group from others.

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Most television shows are able to tell single stories quite fine over multiple seasons. This isn't new or original at all. What is happening here is they are mixing and matching other stuff from Tolkien's second age with their own made up characters and stories, producing a convoluted narrative. And the 'mysteries' are just to make these new narratives seem important when they really aren't.

Right. Some shows do it well and others do not. This stemmed from you saying all shows. Don't move the goal posts and deflect from the parts where you were wrong. Amazon went with a compressed time line so they could keep the same cast of characters through out the entire 5 seasons. Given the life span of elves and the events of the show only elves would be able to be kept the entire show.

Could that have worked better? Maybe. Yet it would still could leave unanswered questions and even less time to answer them. For example the Human actors could only be on for one season or maybe even one episode depending on "Time skips" that occur.

[Nerovar]

So it is all over the place in that sense and none of those story lines in and of themselves are really important to the big picture which should be obvious by 3 episodes in.

That's kind of the crux of the matter. They can't really be important because if they were, Tolkien would have written about them himself. So the best they can hope to achieve is to add some sort of new framing to already established events while hoping that these ultimately inconsequential story lines are interesting enough in their own right (which they usually aren't). That is why adapting this sort of vague history is a very difficult task especially when you don't even have the rights to all of the source material. You basically get all of the downsides of an adaptation (lore constraints, predetermined story outcomes) but none of the upsides that could provide some sort guidance (detailed character arcs, dramatization of events etc.). Complete lose-lose situation.

The amusing part is I did actually answer your questions. You just choose to rage about me the poster rather then engage in the answer you clearly didn't like.

It's kind of funny that you seriously think this constitutes an answer. Way to completely miss the mark. I'm asking you again: what do you think a racial epithet supposed to express? What makes an innocent sounding term like "American Born Chinese" a potential slur? What is the semantic content?

[rhorle]

It's kind of funny that you seriously think this constitutes an answer. Way to completely miss the mark. I'm asking you again: what do you think a racial epithet supposed to express? What makes an innocent sounding term like "American Born Chinese" a potential slur? What is the semantic content?

Wait. Do you honestly think that insults have to have a basis in heritage, social standing, or anything else of that nature? That it can't just exist as an insult because someone decided to say it? Did you even look over the list of ethnic slurs I provided? Because most of those became insults because X about Y was used by people in an insulting manner. Not all have some deeper meaning or requirement in order to be a slur/insult. There isn't a power balance required in a slur. Only an insulting one used to separate a group from others.

I'm not missing any mark. I'm answering your questions but you don't like it. A racial slur, like any insult, is supposed to express something about a group that is used as an insult. There doesn't have to be a tie to heritage. Pointy-ears is enough of difference to be an insult. Cracker was used as a ethnic slur against white immigrants because a certain ethnicity was to loud. It also has roots in the sound of the whip a slave owner/driver used.

American Born Chinese is a slur because it was decided by X group to be a bad thing. So ABC is used as an insult by some. The only one continually missing marks is yourself who keeps trying to tie "Knife-ears" only to dragon age because of the culture of elves in that video game. It isn't their culture from Dragon Age that is being remarked on but the point on their ears.

[Triceron]

I don't know about that. Did anyone ever watch GoT and think "wow this looks cheap"?

And for the record, I don't think RoP looks cheap. Perhaps not the quality of ~90 million USD an episode, but definitely not cheap.

Well yeah that's the thing. The guy I replied to literally is saying this looks cheap so yes, there are people saying that for this series.

[rogoth]

3rd episode is my favourite so far numenor looked awesome and with what little I know about them there sense of superiority was on point, that and the orcs were just a joy to watch all the way through.

Only thing I didn’t really like was the ship captains family’s and the ever awful hobbits, though the fall behind get left behind was a bit funny.

are you talking exclusively about the sets and backdrops here?, because the general overall view looks atrocious, not to mention the characters they focus on are some of the worst seen so far and lets not pretend here, this episode is by far the worst for lore bastardisation of the three available episodes, not only is elendil not tall, which was one of the most defining characteristics of him, he's wearing moob armour for fucks sake, nowhere in real or fantasy history does that help or make sense, somehow isildur knows who galadriel is despite never actually meeting her or having any interaction with her due to being born thousands of years AFTER the forging of the rings of power, and of course, miriel who in the lore is nothing more than a figurehead to legitimise Ar-Pharazon and his claim to the throne as KING OF NUMENOR, yet these amateur writers thought it was a good idea to rewrite this portion of Tolkien lore and have miriel be queen (despite everything saying otherwise), of course guyladriel is still an insufferable cunt of epic proportions with a face like a smacked arse and despite the fact that in the established lore she never once visited Numenor somehow in this show she is wandering around on the island.

these hobbits-not hobbits didn't make any fucking sense when they were announced and were rightfully criticised for that fact, and now thanks to this episode it has reinforced that conclusion thanks to the writers themselves, if we believe these things to be 'proto hobbits' (which isn't remotely lore accurate to begin with but i digress), and they have this VERY well defined system of self governance, why is it never seen in the LOTR/the Hobbit saga era pieces of lore, these showrunners fabricated these things and tried to give them legitimacy, and in this episode they wrote into the show the reason why they can't and shouldn't exist whereby destroying their own narrative, if this doesn't highlight the mediocrity of this show then nothing will, and they should be embarrassed by this debacle.

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So far in this series there have been numerous egregious changes to the lore and those changes aren't really adding up to anything compelling. And really most of this series is nothing but made up characters, invented by Amazon, surrounded by a bunch of weird mysteries and no singular main plot or story. So it is all over the place in that sense and none of those story lines in and of themselves are really important to the big picture which should be obvious by 3 episodes in. And this is where people begin to jump ship because it becomes tedious and uninteresting to follow these separate narratives that aren't leading to anything that anybody cares about in Tolkien or are interesting in their own right.

1. Where is Sauron
2. Who is Meteor Man
3. Who is Halbrand
4. What is this mark Galadriel found
5. What is in the dwarven box
6. Who is Theo's father
7. Where is Tar Palantir and why is he in exile
8. Who are the faithful
9. What is the sword handed to Elendil
10. Who is Adar
11. Who are the 3 mysterious people
12. What is this constellation shown by meteor man
13. Why are the Elves and Numenor not on good terms
14. and so on

And this show just keeps adding more questions and not answering any of them.

i feel like this encapsulates this show perfectly, and while i rarely see song lyrics mesh with things this perfectly, this is one of those rare cases where it fits so well it's frightening lol.



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Realistically how many shows answer all of those questions in the first 3 episodes?

none, but here's the difference between decent quality shows and this steaming pile of trash, other good quality shows would have given some degree of character progression by this point considering this is almost the halfway point of this supposed first season, based on that fact alone the audience should very easily be able to see what the main plotline is, be able to follow said plotline and be able to speculate pretty closely to what will happen moving forwards with a few twists and turns thrown in to keep people guessing, unlike the amateur twats writing this dross who couldn't tell you what they are doing, where they are going or what the actual plotlines are because they themselves don't fucking know, it's been made abundantly clear that this show is so all over the place and nobody can keep track of anything of note long enough for it to make sense before being yeeted over to the next new storyline and completely invalidating anything that came before, it's woeful and embarrassing.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

are you talking exclusively about the sets and backdrops here?, because the general overall view looks atrocious

I liked pretty much all of it other then the one scene in the queen's court which had the attendants so brightly colored, The Set's back drops outfit design ship design wide shots of the statues and buildings ect.

and lets not pretend here, this episode is by far the worst for lore bastardisation

The extent of my lore knowledge for Numenor is that Sauron got a job as a shady advisers and connived the stupid fuckers to go attack god and heaven, So I can't say I know enough about the lore to be upset about it being changed.

[rogoth]

I liked pretty much all of it other then the one scene in the queen's court which had the attendants so brightly colored, The Set's back drops outfit design ship design wide shots of the statues and buildings ect.

The extent of my lore knowledge for Numenor is that Sauron got a job as a shady advisers and connived the stupid fuckers to go attack god and heaven, So I can't say I know enough about the lore to be upset about it being changed.

i don't know if you read one of my earlier comments regarding the moronic decision to condense time, and the pacing of the show in general, but it took centuries for Numenor to become a naval powerhouse, and even then it was pretty much at the very end of the second age when this became a reality, so based on what has been shown so far in these episodes, this one in particular, we get a glimpse of a frame of reference for time, and it doesn't work at all with the established lore, because by the time Numenor is like this, not only have all the rings been forged, but Sauron would still be imprisoned in the dungeons of Numenor, which obviously isn't the case because the showrunners have once again they are using wormhole technology by having events from the future happen ahead of events that happen in the past, as someone who has read the lore, it's not only whiplash inducing but it's also nauseating to have such a blatant disregard for what is established lore and seeing it bastardised on screen to keep the agenda pushing in full flow.


i was gonna say to go and read up about it because it's quite a fascinating read, but then i stopped myself and thought it's probably not a good idea because it might actually change your view and enjoyment of the episode as a result, which you will have to decide if you want that outcome.

[rhorle]

we get a glimpse of a frame of reference for time, and it doesn't work at all with the established lore

Right. You've already acknowledged that it is dumb for them to have compressed time. What point is there complaining about each individual count where time is compressed? They haven't hidden the fact that they are diverging from Canon in order to keep the same non-elf actors through out the series. It is also silly to say it has to do with "agenda pushing" when again it is only so they could keep the same non-elf actors through out the series.

In the novels, the aforementioned things take place over thousands of years, but Payne and McKay have compressed events into a single point in time. It is their biggest deviation from the text, and they know it’s a big swing. “We talked with the Tolkien estate,” says Payne. “If you are true to the exact letter of the law, you are going to be telling a story in which your human characters are dying off every season because you’re jumping 200 years in time, and then you’re not meeting really big, important canon characters until season four. Look, there might be some fans who want us to do a documentary of Middle-earth, but we’re going to tell one story that unites all these things.” https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...ies-first-look

[Lorgar Aurelian]

i don't know if you read one of my earlier comments regarding the moronic decision to condense time, and the pacing of the show in general, but it took centuries for Numenor to become a naval powerhouse, and even then it was pretty much at the very end of the second age when this became a reality, so based on what has been shown so far in these episodes, this one in particular, we get a glimpse of a frame of reference for time, and it doesn't work at all with the established lore, because by the time Numenor is like this, not only have all the rings been forged, but Sauron would still be imprisoned in the dungeons of Numenor, which obviously isn't the case because the showrunners have once again they are using wormhole technology by having events from the future happen ahead of events that happen in the past, as someone who has read the lore, it's not only whiplash inducing but it's also nauseating to have such a blatant disregard for what is established lore and seeing it bastardised on screen to keep the agenda pushing in full flow.


i was gonna say to go and read up about it because it's quite a fascinating read, but then i stopped myself and thought it's probably not a good idea because it might actually change your view and enjoyment of the episode as a result, which you will have to decide if you want that outcome.

Ya I could see how it would be miffing for such a time period and development cycle to be more or less just written out all together.

as to actually reading up my back log is long enough at the moment that I likely wouldn't get to it until after the show is over but it wouldn't be a bad idea to add to the list.

[rogoth]

Right. You've already acknowledged that it is dumb for them to have compressed time. What point is there complaining about each individual count where time is compressed? They haven't hidden the fact that they are diverging from Canon in order to keep the same non-elf actors through out the series. It is also silly to say it has to do with "agenda pushing" when again it is only so they could keep the same non-elf actors through out the series.

McKay says: “As long as we’re painting within those lines and not egregiously contradicting something we don’t have the rights to, there’s a lot of leeway and room to dramatize and tell some of the best stories that [Tolkien] ever came up with.”

and yet at every turn so far they have EGREGIOUSLY and BLATANTLY contradicted all established lore, and not only that but flagrantly done so to push the stupid agenda they are trying to push and self insert to every character, so how does that work?


edit: if that's the justification then it just shows how bad the writers are and how unprepared they are for a project of this magnitude, out of their depth is being kind.

[rhorle]

and yet at every turn so far they have EGREGIOUSLY and BLATANTLY contradicted all established lore, and not only that but flagrantly done so to push the stupid agenda they are trying to push and self insert to every character, so how does that work?

They haven't contradicted all established lore. They are not pushing an agenda with every character. What agenda is there with Sadoc? Or Poppy Proudfellow?

[infinitemeridian]

McKay says: “As long as we’re painting within those lines and not egregiously contradicting something we don’t have the rights to, there’s a lot of leeway and room to dramatize and tell some of the best stories that [Tolkien] ever came up with.”

and yet at every turn so far they have EGREGIOUSLY and BLATANTLY contradicted all established lore, and not only that but flagrantly done so to push the stupid agenda they are trying to push and self insert to every character, so how does that work?


edit: if that's the justification then it just shows how bad the writers are and how unprepared they are for a project of this magnitude, out of their depth is being kind.

What's the agenda? Black hobbits?

[rogoth]

What's the agenda? Black hobbits?

tokenism, that's the agenda, in every aspect of this project there is a token character empowered to do whatever they want however they want regardless of the boundaries that exist saying that it shouldn't be possible, feel free to call me whatever ist/phobe you want, i'm past caring anymore about you and yours severe and detrimental lack of grey matter processing power to understand the fundamental issues presented when all you can do is throw labels around because you don't seem to know any better, but have fun with it because all it does is reinforce the stereotype.

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They haven't contradicted all established lore. They are not pushing an agenda with every character. What agenda is there with Sadoc? Or Poppy Proudfellow?

tell me you haven't read any of the source materiel without telling me you haven't read any of the source material.

are you genuinely saying that with a straight face?, do you seriously believe what you're saying to be true?, are you really that delusional and obtuse to think that way?

i ask these questions because if you answer yes to any of them, it shows just how little you know about the subject matter at hand, it also shows just how little you contribute to the conversation because of that.

[Heathy]

how much of this time period was actually written as a cohesive story and not just cliff notes or tangentially connected short stories. the problem ofc is trying to turn that into an actual tv show.

is this meant to go all the way upto the start or end of the second war? It would be interesting to follow it and see how various things happened. the last episode basically showed the beginning of the southlands becoming mordor. are we going to see how sauron corrupted so many kings and leaders with the rings of power? there is a lot that happened between the first and second wars but I don't think Tolkien actually wrote a fully cohesive storyline at least not in the same way that the hobbit and LotR is written. from what I understand is that the silmarillion is just short stories that are somewhat related to one another but its not one cohesive story line.

I'd be happy if this show took us to the second war but its such a long time period if they don't do any time skips we'll get to the creation of the rings and it just ends there.

[rhorle]

tell me you haven't read any of the source materiel without telling me you haven't read any of the source material.

There have already been examples where they have not contradicted source material. I'm still waiting to hear what agenda they are pushing with Poppy. All you do is rant and rave about absolutes that aren't even true or about who skin tone matters to the Tolkien world.

[InfiniteCharger]

Right. Some shows do it well and others do not. This stemmed from you saying all shows. Don't move the goal posts and deflect from the parts where you were wrong. Amazon went with a compressed time line so they could keep the same cast of characters through out the entire 5 seasons. Given the life span of elves and the events of the show only elves would be able to be kept the entire show.

Could that have worked better? Maybe. Yet it would still could leave unanswered questions and even less time to answer them. For example the Human actors could only be on for one season or maybe even one episode depending on "Time skips" that occur.

No this stems from you trying to defend mystery box story telling to support the nonsense mysteries and story lines I listed and now backtracking. Otherwise, why introduce Lost into the discussion unless you are defending the nonsense writing?